Nice harvest from the Allotment

Popped down the Allotment yesterday to have a check around, by heck courgettes grow quick don't they. Didn't have much time to weed and tidy up so it was just a case of harvest a quick water in the polytunnel and green house  then home.

I was very pleased to see the Dwarf french beans are doing well after the Rabbit attack earlier in the year. So on hands and knees picked lots of lovely dark purple, almost black beans. These beans are Purple King and when you cook them they turn green. They are a very nice French bean to eat as well, and so far a very good cropper.

The  Climbing French beans are also making a come back, I'm not sure which type of bean I harvested as Jane planted 2 different types of climbing bean. Cobra and Hunter, both from vegetableseeds.net.

The Broad beans continue to do well, we have had loads of these and I really like them fresh from the pods for dinner.

Took a couple of the Sweet Peppers (Green) from the greenhouse to promote new flowers and fruit on the plants as the two plants these came from only had a single pepper on each and no flowers. The plants energy should now go into producing new fruit and hopefully more fruit on each plant.

I can hardly get into the polytunnel for cucumber plants, but managed to get a nice ripe Tomatoberry and another cucumber for the fridge.

Got a lovely nice big Pattypan squash as well, we had a small one last week which we cooked up with some courgettes and it was very nice. so I'm looking forward to chomping on this one.

Them there courgettes are heavy croppers, these are Green bush, and I picked 11 today alone, and we have already had 6 or 7 last week all from 5 plants, and still more to come. Good job we quite like them.

The only other thing I really did down the 'lottie was save some pea seed for next year and dead head and distribute some big pink poppy seeds and calendula seed to next years flower bed.

Afternoon in the Sunshine

Day off today and spent the afternoon up at Plot 69, a beautiful day, out in a t-shirt and soaking up the sun.  Onions and shallots are doing very well, took their protective wire mesh off now that the threat of birds pulling them up has gone.  All nice and firmly rooted.  Excuse the weeds on the path in the foreground, the paths are a bit of a mess still, some we have re-seeded but they aren't brilliant.  Wanted to concentrate on getting the veg sorted first.

 

So, today I planted a few broad beans in the spots where some hadn't come up,  will provide some more beans later in the season too.  Then planted some Chantenay carrots and another row of beetroot in the root veg bed.  Enough room left for the parsnips (currently growing really well in the greenhouse at home) and the celariac (growing slowly but surely on the kitchen windowsill).   Not impressed with the Autumn King carrots I had planted there a while ago, not a sign of one shoot, yet the ones I planted at home later have all emerged.  Amazing how things can be so different in two different places.  Then I planted a couple of rows of perpetual spinach and a couple of purple sprouting broccoli.  Used the protection from the onions to keep the marauding predators off..... an allotment neighbour said the local badgers love to roll around in newly dug earth.... and there was certainly a few badger poos around to prove it!  Warning... here comes a REALLY boring photo!

Then to finish off, a long row in the 2nd brassica bed of green rhubarb chard.  Just one row as I will do another in a few weeks and stagger it a bit.  And we have the rainbow chard to go on our other plot and dont want chard with every meal forever more!  The only disappointment so far is the garlic, growing really well at home but only had 3 come up here..... not sure why, maybe not cold enough to get them started.

Spuds n' Sunshine

Gorgeous day here today, had been away for a nice weekend by the coast and came back to do some hard graft today but think we spent a bit too long out in the sun!  Shattered!  So what did we do today?

Plot 119

Simon put up the arch which will hopefully have sweetpeas growing over it and bushy sunflowers at the bases, will make a nice feature.  And a bargain, found it for £4.99 in a sale.

I dug trenches for the maincrop spuds and put them in, Cara, King Edwards and Sarpo Mira, 50 of them altogether, not the straightest of rows but they will taste the same, wonky lines or not!  Also the beanpoles went up for the runner beans today.  Simon used the old canes instead of having to cart some across from our other site.  Still room the other side of the beans for a couple more rows of broad beans too which I'm very pleased about.  Managed to start digging the other side of the plot today too but just got to hot to carry on.

What else on plot 119 today?  Had to move the tomatoes into the polytunnel as the leaves are looking slightly scorched in the greenhouse, I suppose it has been really hot over the weekend and they didnt like the direct sun.  Polytunnel is a little more shady and cooler so put them in there, the cucumbers too just in case.  In the seed bed in the greenhouse however, the aubergines and peppers are doing really well.  Planted some more sweet peppers today, and 30 courgette plants, and filled the rest of the space with calendula.

So then up to.....

Plot 69

Forgot to take pictures of 69 today but all doing ok, onions and shallots are looking healthy, fruit bushes have lots of new growth, broad beans are surviving and herbs are still alive!  Just lots of watering needed up there today, everything really dry and dusty.  Gave it all a good soaking, especially the newly planted rhubarb which was looking a bit sorry for itself.

Home

So finally, after dropping off a car full of rubbish from plot 119 at the local tip we went home but the work didnt stop there.  Planted up my Root-trainers, 32 runner beans and  32 climbing (Blue Lake) beans.  Then started off 28 more broad beans and began soaking the sweet pea seeds overnight.  Watered all the seedlings, all doing ok, despite a cat knocking the cabbages over and nearly causing a catastrophe.  All in all a very busy and productive day.  But tired now!

Between the Showers!

A wet weekend here, heavy showers at times but still managed to get up to the allotment for a short time to see if anything is happening.  Was deserted except for a couple of other hardy individuals who were taking also taking advantage of a lull in the weather.  I planted the broad bean seedlings I had brought on at home, Suttons.  The ones I had planted directly in the ground are yet to emerge.  Simon planted a gooseberry bush we bought yesterday, a Hinnonmaki Red, and also one we dug up from our garden at home as it wasnt doing very well and thought a new site may give it a boost.   Now follows a boring picture of lots of earth with some broad beans poking through..........



 

What else?  Sowed some grass seed on some of the paths just to brighten them up a bit.  Then rain stopped play and went home to spend some time with eldest daughter on Mothers Day.  Got her helping me with the parsnips..... had started chitting them 2 weeks ago and felt some of them were ready to pot on today.  I had previously planted 30 or so modules and only 2 have come up.  By chitting the next lot of seeds I am hoping for a much higher success rate!  So about 40 or so more planted up today and still more in the 'chitterbox'!

First direct sowing of the Spring

Beautiful day today, warm and sunny.  Whilst Simon was sorting out our bench I planted the first seeds of the Spring outside, done lots indoors and the windowsills are full and the greenhouse is busy but today - direct planting.  Put in a row of Autumn King carrots, a row of Nantes carrots, (left a gap then for the Chantenay carrots to be done in April), then put in a row of calendula seeds to brighten the bed up, provide salad flowers and also I read somewhere that they deter carrot fly.  Then 2 rows of Boltardy Beetroot.  Plenty of room left in the bed for another row of later beetroot, the parsnips and some celariac.

Then planted the rest of the Suttons broads beans that we had left - got 34 plugs with them started off at home and had about 25 left to plant direct.  Used my new little griddle to get nice fine soil on top of the seeds, less than £2 from Wilkinsons and really good, it came with two dibbers and a seed dispenser too.

 

                            

 

And Simon also dug up the fruit canes that were growing up through the path and replanted them next to our boundary - not sure what they are yet, think some may be tayberry as we found an old label saying so!  But maybe some raspberries there too, will have to wait and see when they fruit!

 



 

Wet and Soggy Raised Beds

Too wet to do anything on the allotment today so just pottered around at home checking on all the seedlings, got some cauliflowers up now and one celariac!  However, the raised beds are looking very sad, it was all a bit of an experiment as we had never done it before and the winter hasnt been too kind to our little plants.

Our broad beans are leggy, think they needed more light, our over winter peas are hardly worth bothering with and the winter carrots have been the same size since about November!  But the onions are doing ok, and the garlic is very respectable, and the spring greens are good, we have eaten quite a few of them already and they taste amazing and are the most incredible colour when cooked.  As you can see from one of the photos though, the beds are quite waterlogged, they are full of good quality top soil and compost but they are sitting on very heavy clay soil and I dont think they are draining particularly well.  Thinking we might have to move them, but as the whole garden is heavy soil I dont know that it would make much difference, even the lawn is waterlogged.



 

Waterlogged 'Aquadulce Claudia' broad beans and sad little Meteor peas who didnt like the cold

 



 

The slowest growing carrots in the world!  Onions are ok, and garlic too, planted in the gaps between the beds

 



Very pleased with our spring greens!  Will be having some more with our dinner tonight!  When they are all gone, this bed will be prepared for salad.